Take Up the Cross – Chapter 125: Something Treasured, Also Mine! ☆

Another piece gets pulled from the muck. Cylindrical, etched, and composed of crystals and petrified wood, this part that once belonged to the whittled archway comes to roll up under Adris’ raised feet.

There, it completes his junk pile throne when he lets his foot rest on it, unfortunately adding to his pensive mood.

“… Too slow, like this mud, no bothering with manual inscriptions, why bother…?” Hovering in the air before the husk of one of Falke’s many gateways is a very battered rabbit sage. She once more yanks on the frilled black dress she wears, too sexy for her lazy style, sighing when it doesn’t get any looser on her pudgy hips. “Brilliant minds can direct better than words, so let’s just trim the fat and excise gristle…”

When she flits her finger, virulently glowing green worms wave their heads about. Then, they wander forth to tear out more innards where she points.

These conjured creatures feast on the like carrion crawlers, and in place of solid parts that spark with mystical currents, they undulate gently within the pseudoprósōpon frame to replace prior functionality.

“… Uuuuh, it’s so tight up here…!? The Beast is big, too, so why is it loose on me, on meee…?” Hoime’s concentration goes to her slit red tank top, pulling, struggling to keep her boobs from slipping out.

(Yours are more “big” than “shaped”.)

Without noticing the golden shooting stars that button it up, one will miss the wonders of turning them to alter the shape. How she wears it reminds Adris of a merchant’s wife who tries to wear a youthful shawl and slinky caftan later in years.

(You receive something the almighty Lycia wore herself, and complain?)

“Um, direct manipulation lets us pluck destinations by the bushel to check through.” Her hideous servants bridge across the archway’s entire crest, blazing with power when she begins to hum the right note.

In time with checking their resonances with each other, Hoime keeps meekly waxing on like instructed once they reach full luminescence. “Every room between counts as at least two, maybe three, maybe four choices? For space, growing and contracting as space does, takes from above and gi—”

HIIIE!?”

She shakes her bottom after Adris’ footrest bounces off it, kicked up from his junk throne with perfect aim.

“Offer a concise summary.”

“YESYESYES, HURRY HURRY, ALWAYS MORE TO DO…!”

That circulation to his “aura” that Adris finds possible now brings out the best in all who feel it added, especially when merged with violent intent.

“Peace, prosperity, surrender, accept eveeeerything…” His mystic on loan from Lycia twirls while in the fetal position, yanking on her long ears and muttering briefly.

(I don’t want to fix this one. Lycia can do it…)

Or so Adris hopes, though Hoime’s long term survival hinges on Lycia finding her more “tasty” than tasty.

“Helpful Hoime can be concise!” That she has a chance to prove herself shortens her mental break, and the bunny eagerly nods in obedience before pointing the archway’s innards out. “Oho… well, then, Falke steals room from up high, such as with these hierarchic-dimensional plane anchors, rather than from Alchemical principles of time and space! The [Frenetic Realm], place of light and thought, bright and revealing, exists more as impression and frivolity than physicality! More like a chaotic trip through a mirror reflected in many others…?”

(Aura masters could manipulate the world’s boundaries through projecting their Inner Expanses outward… such as what Falke and Orloss did during their “fight”.)

“The manse becomes bigger through manipulating a higher plane, drawing it into Zennia, yes?”

“Well spoken, Great One! A paltry manifestation, but it… serves…”

When she becomes engrossed in more twirling of fingers that mimic her worms, Adris goes back to his reading. His choice of material is one he grips with reverence, even though before he’s threatened to burn it.

(… [I HATE, I LOVE, I DESPISE, I REVERE, KNOW MY NATURE AND NEVER DEPART IT, JUST LIKE THE TRUE SERVANTS OF THE JACKDAW WERE IMPRISONED BY THEIR OWN LINGERING REGRETS IN THE END]

… the fuck does that mean?)

Adris flips the pages of Codex Rantillius.

The sheer multitude of glyphs scribbled on its endless pages, now so endless that the contents seem to escape from its covers when closed, prove hard to read even with a Talent made for that.

“High is locked by low, for a dark ocean is what gray and bright settle upon, lounging on? By ensorceling this place with mirrors, every surface adds physical seepage of the Frenetic up to a maximum range of…”

(“Low”? “Dark ocean”? I seem to remember going through something like that, once.)

“Enough. It suffices, the principles are known to me. Complete your work.”

“AhaHaHa! Of course, of course, all gates rely upon high and low to open, so why not be mine to all places, right here…?”

Though Adris’ thoughts are on a blue angel’s shadow jumping, the laughing madwoman he’s forced to utilize completes her sparkling green design in the air with her fingers snapping before he can dwell further.

The design that floats and crackles is a closed eye that only dwarfs the surrounding colors, muting them… at least, until it opens.

On the face of the destination arch, an endless multitude of eyes pop out from the bodies of these other-dimension carrion devourers. The archway buckles with the chaotic energies traversing their bodies and across the remaining pieces.

The familiar hallway beyond vanishes into a storm of iridescent green, swirling with the environment to draw what views it both physically as wind, spiritually as a tug on the soul, and mentally as a twisting of distance.

All of these eyes focus on Hoime, who spins around to bow down and scream above the popping air.

“Every gate goes everywhere, now, free to bow to my sight, Great One!

Where first, oh truly first, will you go!?”

(A good question, but a better one is…)

Adris holds upside down his codex from one cover, letting an endless deluge of pages flip with gravity.

Every last page is black with glyph scrawls, condemning and begging for salvation.

[CHEER, CRY, GREET THE WATCHERS, OUR FRIENDS…!—

—BUT MAKE SURE TO RUN FROM THE STAGE WHERE DOLLS DANCE ALONG, THE PAST AND FUTURE BEGINNING TO JOIN AND TANGO!—

—RUN, RUN, FLEE, SAVE NO ONE!]

Adris plants his thumb to stop on a page that reads clearly for a moment…

[… Friends outside always want in!

Get out, Adris, take nothing with you!

I hate what you’ve done, but please, Rantil also…!

Don’t get lo—————!]

… until the cancerous glyphs form on this page, too, eating what’s visible.

Only madness is left on her pages ever after, eating at his sanity far worse than proximity to Hoime could hope to do.

(I’ve lost Rantil.)

Such a conclusion causes Adris’ stomach to churn. Along with his loins, after the exposure to the dream that Authentic Fiction inflicted.

Though outwardly calm as ever, Adris finds it hard to keep his skin from flushing further as he looks up at the woman he claimed so shortly ago.

(I thought she was bluffing, that it was all me, but…)

Even now, the giddy Hoime’s thighs are glistening beneath her flapping dress. Her scent is a conquest playing through his mind once more, dulling Adris’ eyes and making him want to sleep.

If he sleeps, he can dream of punishing her juicy hole anew.

Perhaps, even recall the night that only she does, where he won so perfectly—

(… Keep… calm. Rantil must be exaggerating about how useful she is, seeing as I never see her do anything.)

His trained mind ignores the crawling sensations under his skin that burn hot. They remain ever after the shattered darkness of the dream infested him.

It’s impossible to remain calm after those illusory figures’ emotions masqueraded as his own. They were far from false, only deviant and inspiring.

(Fehr is real. Or, was…)

That figure of hers, older and more lewd, locked within the statue had belonged to a living tyrant. Like Fehl, her design turns out to be based upon a historic personage, no doubt tied to this family intimately.

(The Regalia, older than this place, bore different heraldry. A different bird…)

It’s too much to risk this possible truth nipping at his mind.

Authentic Fiction was brought forth to direct a plot that will bring Adris cold-blooded justice. Tapping his lips while considering the alternative, Adris can only smile.

(Fehr changed it all.)

This older servant was more than real: her exposed fair skin and delicate features matched with the exotic allure of total authority crushing down on Adris through Fehl’s supplications.

If Rantil was here to save him from his cock straining to escape his pants every time he recalls a moment that made him want to be Fehr, he’d never be so desperate.

(Darkness isn’t ink you mix, but a wellspring of lost meaning that you draw out of.)

Authentic Fiction was supposed to only make the world accept Adris’ vision of “truth”.

Instead of repainting the canvas using his own color, it’s pulling from old paints.

(This insane family has a secret that survives within the “false face”! It’s infected Authentic Fiction, sending this “tale” into unknown lands, leaving me…?

I’m retelling an old story for them to laugh at, is that it!?)

“AhaHaHaHaHa! I’ve found so many places to try…!”

Such a realization makes him want to drag Hoime down by her annoying boots, pound her into the ground and then tan her hide.

Always, the complications grow. They never diminish.

(They’re not guidances or predictions. My Talent is stealing the “unknowable truths” from the places no one is allowed. It made my disguise from two Kestners, even if I don’t know how their twisted relationship works!)

Fehl and Fehr.

Falke and this unknown other he serves, or did in the past.

They are linked by the mists which rise from the manse itself.

(I NEVER ASKED FOR SOMETHING THIS CONVOLUTED!)

He can only shift on his throne of heaped junk.

Tap his foot to relieve some stress.

(Falke is the underling? Even though he now rules without question? Sapphira was so… hungry and naked, even though now she seems like an uncrowned queen? Fehr was… not docile, to say the least.)

Their trinary constellation of emotions and doubts, fears and hates, all swirl within him still.

How they acted Adris finds as repulsive as it is intriguing.

(What they were was raw, but without artificiality. That’s what I want with the rest, something that they abused? Life is horrifyingly unfair.)

In front of Fehr, he must be a guest.

Lycia? A brother and more…

(She wants to include me again? That was an invitation…!)

Such a request should make him revolted, the thought of her with others, but if it’s her and…

(I always have to be something refined with strangers and acquaintances. Aloof. Subtly dangerous.)

But that won’t work for what he wants in his own life.

Already, with Kol…

(It’s broken. I can’t simply be “a false god”. And I’m not angry that it’s all changing.)

Adris scratches his arms, feeling the resonating thoughts of domination and supplication.

(What Falke and Sapphira had with her was also what they squandered…!)

“…

… Ah, Great One? Are you not… enthusiastic to test Hoime’s successes!? I am very pleased to assist!”

(That Fehr in the dream was lucky, since she could hide and speak from walls. When the impression I give changes without me meaning it to, the person who it changes for will begin to suspect me.)

Adris must steeple his hands while leaning back, instead.

Like the monster he must be toward those he does not care for, and forgot to be when in Lycia’s embrace, he must dictate how the masses sees him with care.

Lest his dream end, too, when this mystic pierces his mystery with her “eyes”.

Hoime flutters down before him, timidly bowing once before offering the measliest grin.

“Wherever you wish, let me convey you! I understand my place now!”

(Too smart. She noticed I dote on females I like.)

Hoime leans forward, ever so gently to reveal her valley with round walls. It’s a subtle maneuver for a sane woman, yet when done by this convict it’s overly ambitious since they threaten to spill out.

Adris’ inspecting gaze sends her flinching backward, huffing deeply despite also paling.

“… If… if my White Death needs more… I’m… capable of providing, maybe, perhaps, what others don’t want to pleasantly enough…?”

(Searching me for a way “inside”, she’ll invite me inside something “nice”.)

When Adris merely squints at her offer and leans forward to mimic her, the slave in the making shivers and pats her crotch. Then decides to look appropriately mournful.

“I… am… contrite! Never before so thankful for mercy, mercy such as yours! So, could I perhaps continue to please you in more, so very fun, worshipful ways?”

(I made a mistake.)

Letting her ears hang low, Hoime nervously shifts and looks elsewhere.

But, always returns her gaze with avarice flaming up. Her mouth curling with more than humor.

“My devotion, total, so unlike others’… huhuhu…!”

Crossing one leg in front the other, Hoime struts forward with more daring.

The stench of a wanton bitch that clings to her from their time in the waiting room is suddenly aggressive.

(“Others’”?)

“Not just my brilliant mind, I’m wanting to… ex-expand… more, now… haah…” She slouches while panting, staring at the ground with terror in her eyes, but also collecting drool. “A servant serves, right, like the trainer says!? Do I not stand to serve more brightly, maybe? Um, no, more to the point, a point of course, could…

I possibly, with Your Magnificence, earn—?”

“‘Favor with me, more than Lycia holds, perhaps, maybe’, is it?”

From his crumbling throne, Adris leaps to land inches from Hoime with a comical “bounce”.

“… something like that!? Maybe not, definitely not as bold!?”

(I hate greedy people.)

“Hah! Too ambitious… Hoime.”

His servant collapses to her knees when his mighty hand stretches forth.

“G-G-G-G-GREEAAAAT ONE, PLEASE DON—!?”

“‘Don’t fail to reward the dutiful Hoime like you do the evil ghoul, except cherish me because I submit where she doesn’t’, is this your idea of ‘fun’?”

“ICK!?”

Instead of rewarding, Adris hand enters her mouth partly to pinch her cheek. He relishes in the comical faces she makes when he wrings her head by it.

“Do you wish for this vessel to treat you like it does the ghoul that’s fallen for it?”

“Uuuuuhhhh…!”

“Think me easy, do you?”

So peppy moments before, Hoime instead rapidly pats her knees in fear, crying big tears.

(Authentic Fiction… isn’t scary!)

Adris cannot think but to scowl in annoyance, letting himself be daunted and mope because of another’s crime.

(My Talent isn’t wrong! I am its master, after all!)

Born of Adris, it can’t be anything but perfect.

It’s the tool that lets him punish one of the perpetrators of his previous humiliation, so it must be just!

The blame for the trajectory it thrusts him on can only fall on one person!

(If it wasn’t for this manse’s walls and floors, I’d not have been possessed by memories! They’ve gunked up my perfect Tool with the fat of their lives, these fucking Kestners!)

“It’s true, that this vessel has become quite attached to her.”

“… H-Huh?”

Rounding Hoime and sparing more torment, Adris instead approaches the activated gate with a somber tone. Caught up in the air rushing toward it, Adris listens to this tumult while pulling out a coin.

The coppery piece, one of his last possessions of home, holds a glimmer of rainbow.

“Because this vessel desires, my true existence can be demonstrated through it. Because it can be sated, like all others, only by ME, it grows numb to my designs and serves without questions…”

(“Adris the boy” and “Adris the false god” are the same thing, this is one way of coping with the world.)

In Welcome Web after getting to know the others, or thinking that he was truly talking to them without issue, Adris had resolved to grow closer.

And after meeting Lycia again, and especially after…

(I was at fault on Xin, the whole time, Serras. But, no further: I won’t ruin my new relationships like Falke did his!)

“I’LL OBEY, HOIME WILL OBEY, TOO!”

So screams the mystic when he turns to leer, lit by the gateway she herself summoned.

“Correct, but not for ‘favor’. For, you know what I truly am, without annoying human skins that diminish my glory…”

(Didn’t you see my best show!? What did I do to break you…?)

If she still had fluids within to wet herself, this perfect fodder for Adris’ “false god” guise would be soaked. Instead, she only continues to psychotically nod her head.

“FOR YOUR GLORY, OH WHITE DEATH! OH PERFECT RABBIT GIVEN FORM! OH KILLER OF THE DAMNED SINNERS THAT SCURRY!

HIEEEEEEEEEEE!”

She finishes by squealing just like a rabbit would if an arrow took it and cringing from his presence.

(… Huh? No, nevermind, it’s enough to simplify our relationship and not grow more involved.)

No matter what happened on the night that she fell to ruin, Hoime is the one whose sanity has been so awesomely broken by Adris’ might.

She is a good example for others’ future fates. But…

(I thought I could learn everything about my “charges”, maybe bridge the gap and make them closer to me like the kobolds are, but I’m seeing the limit with dangerous idiots like you.)

“Now, because I own you through allegiance to my chosen ghoul, my eminence demands…”

“COMMAND ME, OH MERCIFUL MURDERER!”

Hoime lays herself out before him, arms stretched.

(Perfect! A member of the Works, but in service to the Alchemaster!?)

There’s only one command to give.

(I don’t need your affection or devotion!)

The one that demands the treasure called…

“By the infinite power of a black cross and your eternal [Recompense], this slave shall tell me all the secrets of the Gran Castillo that it knows!”

When Adris sweeps out his arms, taking in the wind and letting his clothes whip with it, even the gateway behind him seems to shudder with his demand.

(Give me secrets! All you are is how useful you become, Hoime!)

In a shrieking voice, absent any dignity or decorum, the slave rises to answer its master.

“…

… No way! Never, ever! AhaHaHa!”

(Huh?)

Hoime bobs around, scratching her head like she has fleas while also sobbing.

“I serve Her, but also you!? Always the Mistress, please don’t hurt me!? What She gives, I won’t abandon, won’t betr—!”

Before Hoime can finish rejecting him…

“HURK!?”

… her hands close on her throat. Hoime’s sparse fur stands on end when she yelps.

Gold light glints from her body before cracking loose, then she wrenches that kissable neck of hers so hard that veins bulge on her forehead.

“CAK, CAAAAACK!?”

With eyes also wide and jutting out, the Works mystic loaned to the Servants of Gold starts down the path of self-strangulation. Just a plain sense of duty is given with her bones popping from mad strength applied.

(What?)

This quick corpse stares up from the floor while flopping.

(Shit, she can’t refuse a command without…!)

Adris lifts a hand and breaks the spell over himself, almost lunging for her before he remembers his station.

“… Cease, now!”

“GRAck! GRRRRRK!?”

She should obey his command, but instead ignores it. No Vigor collects at the corner of her mouth, only phlegm.

(I gave her a command…! She refused the first one… and so, then, there is a priority…!?)

It comes to him, finally.

And he stomps the floor to wake what’s left of Hoime’s consciousness, though her skin is pale and she’s ceasing to kick as rapidly.

“By my authority, I withdraw my previous demand!”

“…

… HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Adris can only tap his feet in the aftermath of this mystic’s attempted flight into death. She hovers inches from the ground, drooling onto it as she hangs her neck low.

“What would make you obey her over your…!?”

(No, that’s not the right voice…!)

So thrown off, Adris almost knelt to punch Hoime in the head. Dignity forces him to calmly ask a question over her hacking coughs.

“Why trade your life for the benefit of one that would readily sacrifice yours?”

“… HAAH, HAAAAAAhhhh, hoooo, no, nonono, not true…! She… the Mistress, gave me…!”

Glued to the ground, Hoime reaches for his white boots.

“… AhaHaHa, never… gonna give it up…

Never betray Her! Greed is gold… gold is forever!”

(She’ll lose her standing with [Golden Luster] if she betrays the Alchemaster, maybe? A hidden loyalty mechanism, since the Alchemaster manipulates her Modus?)

The power of a Bloodstained Ghoul that Lycia abandoned was born of Greed.

It must be the same with Hoime, yet the mystic would die before losing her gains.

“You swore such a thing to that psychopath, despite you meaning nothing to it?”

“… No! To… each other…!”

It’s time for Adris to drop his mouth for a moment.

Hoime rises to her knees and grabs onto his suit, unreasonably dragging at him.

“‘No Servant of Gold will betray their oath to Her’! If one does, only one, just like… that night they record in [Servants Circle] in a great… panoramic scene of… it’s unspeakable, we’ll all, all of us will be from most powerful to least…!”

(Total extermination!?)

Hoime’s tears continue, leaving Adris to guess that her later silence truly means.

“You don’t want to die?”

“NO!”

“Then if I should end you…?”

“HNNNN!?”

Hoime turns whiter than when she was choking, but still manages to stare him back.

Green blazes in her pink eyes for a moment, matching the magical arts she conjures.

“What I earned, my… [greed]…!

What’s… mine, only mine, won’t betray, even if I lose it all…!

… All I am is what I am, chose to be…!”

“Ho?”

“… uguuuuuuu…!”

She tries to pull away, but Adris pats her head before she can.

Then strokes an ear, causing her to twitch and moan.

“For the first time since I’ve met you, you proved you are worth something by speaking honestly.”

“Oooooh… huh!?”

“To value oneself above all is not wrong, Hoime.”

(I can’t hate people who are willing to die for what they’ve risked all for. She’ll work out with Lycia just fine.)

Away from her, Adris stands before the wracked portal conjured just close enough not to get sucked in.

It flashes images of bizarrely lit and blurry hallways that seem perfectly reminiscent of the normal manse. At least, if one ignores their pulse quickening when peering in.

At the precipice, he flips his coin.

“I’m departing, Hoime. Prepare my return gate in less than half a Short.”

“Huh? HUHUHUHHH!? It’s not set anywhere! IT’S COMPLETELY RANDOM RIGHT NOW!”

(Precisely.)

“You’ll get lost!? Thrown somewhere…!?”

“As long as it’s thrown to her, I win.”

The most untrustworthy creature on Zennia had shared the love of a favorite uncle with two naive and retarded children.

(Through only deduction and his own insight, Orloss spoke to “me” without revealing. As if he understood the game.)

In perfect defiance of an oath not to interfere, this conman krakenkeeper had relayed the solution to Adris’ next problem via Fehl.

(“Don’t go through gates that have no destination, for they’re dangerous…” Almost as if you witnessed it first hand.)

“Return!? How will you return, I don’t even know how to trace you without my tome! I won’t have it again until I resummon it dur—!?”

“Can’t you connect to any gate you see with your ‘sight’?”

“Yes!? Any!”

(Then it’s simple.)

Turning to glance without ceasing to flip, Adris sneers.

“Just keep connecting to more until you get the one you see me standing before, Hoime.”

The mystic falls to her knees, articulating her shock with fingers that wiggle like her worms do.

“But, there’s over a hundred, at least, and… aHaHaHa, each attempt requires so much effort to…!? And it tingles between my ears every time the gate jumps a connection…? What if I… can’t find you before, before…!?”

“I know you will find me, slave.”

“HNNGH!?”

Again she prostrates, trying to hide herself when he growls, but only sending her shivering butt higher into the air.

“Because, when the harbinger of change that is myself leaves this Frenetic Realm and doesn’t find you on the other side…” His breath is dank when he exhales, aided by the sudden anger that blazes with red eyes in the back of his mind.

“You’ll find strangulation a better outcome than my ‘favor’.”

“AhHAHAHAHAHA, GOOD LUCK!

HELPFUL HOIME WILL SEE YOU IN A BIT, BUH-BYE!”

With her mind re-mangled to his liking, Adris continues flipping his coin.

“Easy job. No worries. After all, luck is my thing.”

(So long as that lovable elf is my thing, still.)

To nobody in particular, Adris screams out his intent.

“Guess it’s up to only me to save a troubled forest child that’s lost in a terrible place!”

With the statement issued, Adris observes the random places he might reach within the vortex flash by.

None seem fairly interesting despite his anticipation that luck might deliver him to Ave, for none are emerald apart from the shocking energies.

(… I thought this would work, maybe I should ask Hoime fo—?)

His coin leaps in an arc, even though he meant to toss it straight up as if it’s caught in the sudden breeze that picks up behind him.

By reflex he slashes out to grab it, catching it just before he falls forward off balance.

A tingle of change plucks at his senses!

(Shit!)

“WATCH OUTTTTT!”

But, the distance between himself and the archway suddenly grows too short with its buildup of blinding light.

The eye worms start shrieking like the rabbit does, then drone like the watchers from beyond when the whispers hiss their disapproval.

(O-Oh.)

Coin disappears, bursting into emerald flame and merging with the portal.

With it, a hand, then an arm.

(I find myself really hating elv—)

Adris watches, stupefied, as he simply burns as a human torch and vanishes.

Randomly, unluckily caught by sheer happenstance of a shitty flip and Hoime’s error, Adris ceases to exist on Zennia.

Just according to plan.

Zennia’s fantastical sights defy imagination, even the thoughts of a student of aura.

Light should be intangible, even if a child thinks it possible to walk across a lake when the torch-like sun projects a pier along its surface.

The moment you try to run toward the source of it, you’ll crash beneath the water.

“Should you be trying to gut a guest, you flapping turkey!?”

“[There are no guests here! Only prey!]”

(I become neither! There is no cross, so there will be no battle!)

Adris’ feet stomp along solid radiance, real firmament that’s cast from a passing mirror in defiance of norms.

The blurry reflections of black harpies and statues and gray furniture are momentary beings of light that he must dodge by, cast up into his path when he angles through the window to the manse.

(There’s another root!)

At a distant door, set into a wall of vibrating colors without borders, is an archway to the next “room”. Up one of its sides, a constricting purple vine that digs its creepers inward marks the next waypoint on his search.

(I just need to get rid of this creep!)

The squawking hunter that tails him is wrapped in shining mail and robes, glittering within its diving plummet. Twin curved swords slashed in a dancing flurry are about to split this child who runs on water.

“[I finally have the culprit for these damnable vines!]”

(I’m not responsible for any of this!)

Without borders, though, distance and depth are meaningless, stolen constants that harass only Adris and not the Shiny Malphas that’s pursued him since he arrived here.

For the Malphas merges with the colors to gain ground whenever Adris escapes it.

(Fucking Hoime! If you call it radiant, why not remind me of what can live here!)

Future paths and escapes exist only so long as Adris can withstand the mind-rending palette of incandescence outside of his moving cage of solidity.

Except for the self-rolling cart that focuses into view, ambling to ram into him at the worst time.

“… Ready to cook like your friends!?”

“HAAAWK!? [THAT WAS YOU!?]”

(By proxy!)

Adris vaults the cart, grabbing the tray off of it, and then kicks backwards upon landing.

Instead of an obstacle for him, it becomes a weapon when his butt hits the floor and he launches it skyward with rabbit boots “bouncing”.

“[Pointless!]” The winged Malphas’ dual swords bisect the cart made of living colors. “[FIRST YOU, THE—! BLARGH!?]”

(DISTRACTED!)

A muffin lodges in the bird’s mouth, followed by a tart jabbing its eye!

Like a blue angel is fond of doing, an equal acrobat rises to his feet while hurtling pastries from the plate he grabbed.

“Cranky!? Try some sugar, parrot!”

“[ARGHLBL!]”

Such an annoying barrage proves no danger, but with its beak crammed full the bird can’t help but confusedly slice each confection into radiant sands. There’s enough stacked high to let Adris reach the doorway.

(And with that…!)

On the other side, Adris turns and glides under a reaving strike.

Without an angle of attack but forward and through the breach, the Malphas is reduced to a close combatant.

(YOU ARE SOLID LIKE I AM, HERE!)

An angled fist steals strength from the floor up his stance, uppercutting into the bird’s crotch.

“KRAAAW!”

The shock of the strike halts its downward chop and crosses its legs with a wheeze.

(I’m sick of you!)

Adris jumps to wrap his legs around its torso.

Clamped on and ready to tussle, they’re staring each other in the eyes!

“Hi there!”

“[I-INSANE—!?

GUH, GUH, GUUUUH!?]”

Straight up into its underbeak, Adris continually launches fists.

The thrill of motion makes his body as limber as a monkey’s. Each strike adds to the pleasure that mixing with pure fantasy of a radiant realm feeds back into everything he does!

“So… nice… to…!

Directing his martial spirit into the final act, Adris wrenches the Malphas’ neck around and then slams his forehead into its eye!

“[EGAAH!]”

“… LET LOOSE!”

The stored momentum of his aura striking arts blazes up into a shockwave from the hit, blasting the flipping Adris off to backroll. His victim drunkenly wings through the tripping lights, before slamming into the archway.

(I’ve still got it! AHAHAHA!)

A maniac sense of accomplishment launches him fleeing into the furthest reaches of this dimensional labyrinth, only a bit more tired than he was before. Victory is normally exciting, but here…?

(Frenetic!? My heart feels like it might explode from joy!)

All of the rainbows honor him as assuredly as he feels himself needing to do.

At the center of this place, a great orange tree, the innumerable, circling gateways in the vast distances continue to orbit.

(Oh, and roots are discovered! Ave equals elves, and elves mean…)

Along certain gateways, creepers grow. Where they grow the colors bend. The reflections of the world below distort within afflicted rooms bordered by these gates, and space cracks often with popping noises.

(Did she set this up!? How strategic, is she trying to be Still?)

Unknowing of how or why, all he can do is entrust that they’re not placed as haphazardly as he thinks. Their choking strength almost completely entrapped earlier gates.

(Hoime said the gates stabilize everything. More recent saboteurs… are less overgrown…!)

It’s toward this promise that he leaps across gaps in the physical, only able to traverse the constructs of light that shine forth from windows, mirrors, and polished surfaces. One slip means tumbling into coruscating energies that his sense of aura and darkness calls “dissolution” if he meets them.

(I won’t mistreat what’s mine…! I won’t terrorize it, what I want, even by mistake, anymore…!)

Round corners, over divides, and up manse levels through gaps in architecture, Adris follows the destructive creepers.

Running is itself a narcotic experience.

Everything he took into this realm, all of the sexual tension and dreams of sitting upon his own throne, are starting to steer his legs.

(I can call Hoime lazy, but not boring… it’s just, I want more!)

More slender.

Pliable, bending with anticipation rather than fright.

Two hallways show nothing when the shine of a hanging crystal chandelier lights them, but the smell down one is enough.

It’s the forest, forever free and epic in its variety.

As familiar as where Adris is cradled to sleep every night.

(THERE! My cowardly princess regent is waiting for my thick dick to rescue her~!)

Almost unable to run with how his third leg flops against himself, Adris resorts to hopping.

The red at the edge of his sight urges him to pursue faster, claim quickly!

(It’s too strong, the flavors. I can’t think past them…)

All of the blood boiling and pumping makes it simple to treat bright walls as bounce spots and the ephemeral clutter of rooms as somersaulting posts.

(She’s close! That airheaded skink who abandoned me!)

Just like Kol, Ave left him to the mercy of Falke!

A fist clenches in frustration.

(All so that you could go drink wine with the enemy who you think is so redeemable, despite the fact that he’s the most dangerous creature, the first way I’m going to bully you will be to—!)

“AGAH, GAAAH!?”

With a crack and a whoosh, a violent emerald tornado swoops in.

The floor spins suddenly too below his head, almost slamming into the snared boy before he’s wrapped up further into a meaty constriction and carried away.

(G-GREEN!?)

His arms are left stretched out in entrenched coils that feel satin soft!

The spirit of pursuit Adris feels within buckles at the sudden change, this rabbit predator that Hoime fears draining of gumption.

And why shouldn’t it?

“… Ah…

Ahhhdriiiisssssss—sssssshhh!”

Rabbits, no matter how white and bloodthirsty, are the natural prey of hissing snakes.

(I didn’t even feel her, she was moving so quickly!?)

“A-Ave—GHK!?”

“HAAH!?”

His merest try to name his captor sends her into a fit, swaying possessively with her human form nearing from the hallway she ambushed from.

This elven serpent looms under, her face coming near to flick her forked tongue out. A drop of saliva is left on his cheek.

“MMM!? … My… my savior tastes so sweet, like morning buttermilk!” Ave’s strong, delicate fingers cradle his head, though only for a moment before she withdraws them with a tremor. “FINALLY, SOMEONE CAME TO SAVE AVE!? THANK PELLAEON!”

(WHO NEEDS SAVING!?)

Clad in blackest and most transparent night, the fearsome serpent queen—

(No, no, no, don’t fear! It’s just…!)

— the berserk snake elf runs her hands over Adris again, her breathing as irregular as bodily twitches. Always fearful of touching first, the sylvan treasure Adris was looking for instead gathers her own trove.

“I knew you’d come! I’m so sorry I didn’t go with you before!? I thought I was welcome here, but, buttttt…!”

“A-Ave…”

Adris can only croak out her name before her massaging coils crush anew.

“Fake! Everything’s fake! I hate this place, it’s just like their stares…!”

“A—!”

“Adris, you understand, right!? There’s no freedom in cold muck! No real smells or… touches! No joy that isn’t… um, measured, maybe!? Just like that… shorty fink likes, measured…!”

In front of her prince, the fragile princess’ arm rolls over her little mounds.

“Ahh! Joy like… the union… that’s the real… haah, haaah!”

(H-Huh?)

Crystal green slit eyes hold only him in view, but they also lack knowledge of boundaries. The once maiden that he broke in is threatening to devour him with a kiss, before his stare sends her back.

“S-Sorry!? It’s just so frightening alone, here!

… Without your touch…”

(Yes, yes it is!)

“… But, now… now Ave will be saved, breath and body… ahn…!”

A scent deeper than only the forest clings to her body and especially the fingers of one hand. Sucking on those digits with her tongue, Ave’s drunkenness intensifies again.

(That smells like… she’s been mas—! Gack!)

Adris had presumed himself most flustered, but Ave’s condition is worse than he’s ever seen it.

Ornaments in her ponytail hang crookedly, her manic speed leaving them nearly flying out. The same slit-cut fishtail dress from this morning is what she wears, but when she holds her arm from under her bosom the top simply pulls free to hang.

He gulps at the sight of her tender pink nipples, inflamed and pointed. Pert breasts are red with squeezing abuse. The finger she sucks on must taste like the sweetness of her honey pot, a strange recollection in Adris’ mind of them pilfering a sweet taste together.

“‘A voice that stirs the unmoving roots, the lord of the forest calls out for his kin…’ Oh, were you calling for me, weren’t you!? Adris, I couldn’t hear you, but now…”

His tie is ripped clean off, cast to the mercy of this dimension by sharp nails.

“… I can hear your soul speak now, Adris! Your life… beats… so hard!”

(Help.)

Ave’s hand parts the black dress, gift of the Kestners. The thin appendage snakes down like her body to stop at a slit that’s wet with dew.

When her fingers play…

“… AH! I… want to feel…! Adris, let me be… pretty again… I want to experience your salvation…”

This sloppy squishing of her tight lips and juices, paradoxically displayed for all to see by a forest child that shies from just human contact, widens Adris’ view of the world’s strange possiblities.

(“Salvation”!? You just want to to get off with me! I, I didn’t expect—!)

“… ‘Gift your breath, so sweet, and twine oak branches with me’, Adris…!

AHN! Ohh, oooooh!”

Like she’s been performing the same motions incessantly before his arrival, Ave’s hand is a blur that leaves the snake shaking with wracking pleasure. The little bud that she meekly spoke of in the garden within the baths is sorely abused, no secret now.

A flush body and face foretell of a fire that’s consumed the wind within her, more like Kol’s blaze than the needy, submissive breeze that Adris’ expected.

(Feels awful! I can’t even… speak to try and…!)

“Save me… with your…!”

The length of coil crushing his dick constricts!

“Please…! Only something so… mighty…”

Noticing that Adris stares longingly, Ave bites her upper lip and uses her fingers to spread her lower ones, all while looking away in shame.

“… can lift this spell~…

Maybe, that’s saying too much…!? Ahhh, but, you taste so…”

(Calm down, calm down, this is not what I—)

The inconsistency, the neediness, it all seems so wrong that Adris’ body struggles against his prison. Emerald scales quiver at the refusal.

(I need to reclaim the lead! Ave’s gonna eat me!)

Whipping around his head, he’s looking to find a way out by distraction.

He’d already decided that he was the “hunter”, but…!

(How do I act with her being so different from—!?)

“Alas, thy savior be far from gallant!”

The bragging voice that sounds like Adris’ own turns viciously singsong. When Adris’ search takes him to an exotic armsman wearing elvish mail, arms crossed in derision and coolly watching the performance, Adris recalls that his “target” also had a tagalong.

“Perhaps, now, fear springs, absent talent?”

(… The… the fuck did you ju—!?)

“Why? Is Ave… bad?”

(What!?)

His cowardly companion creeps back out, cutting through the lust afflicting her.

Ave offers an unsure, fake smile, pulling back her hand from her clit and abandoning her whimsical temptations.

“Is… am I… not good, but everyone else is…? Is that why… you don’t want to be…?”

Tears fill her eyes. When she no longer seeks orgasm, her breathing becomes forced.

“Hick! Ave is bad… at making you feel… good, like Kol said, so, you don’t want to be… ‘more than friends’, anymore…?”

A swift predator turns into a slouching slug. Hiccups of grief melt away all the surety Ave felt toward their imminent joining.

(Why did that brickhead tell you you’re bad?)

He still can’t respond, for he chokes when trying to do so. A snake’s coiling, even in grief, can kill.

“I’m sorry, Ave is sorry!

Because… you told me… to be… yours, I thought I could say…! That I could… talk big in front of the others! But, I was bad, wasn’t I? That was the real truth…”

(Bad? Why do you think that?)

Awkward, uncoordinated, and somewhat reticent, yes. Ave was definitely those things on that fateful night.

“Oh, Ave was right, it was all bad! Just look at how Adris stares, like Ave is an idiot!? For thinking… wanting more, after…!”

But the way she trembles in discomfort, lambasting herself in that secret language of hers…

“Ave ruined it! Wanting… needing…! Ave can’t stand this, messing up again, just after that mistake with Friend Orloss!?” Leaving Adris still wrapped up in her tail, Ave turns and tries to flee, only dragging him along and causing her to start weeping harder when she gawks at her newest mistake. “Uhh, so stupid, why can’t Ave do something simple right!? He’s trapped instead of happy!? Why can’t Ave… make the ‘stories’ real in her own life!?”

(She… thought she was bad? Wanting me so much, like she is…!

And…)

In his rush to escape, Adris hadn’t accounted for the new color.

Even though the hateful “Rouvenor” skulks nearby with a delicate expression on Adris’ copied face, a finger tapping on his long, elven ear pensively, the subject of their mutual concern is quite distinct from his ever-present green attire.

(Black!)

Adris’ heart jumps at that.

A smile forms without prompting.

The hunger inside, yawning and riled up by bad dreams, eats the fear and confusion.

(Just like my own clothes turned black when I put them on this morning, at some point she…!)

“Ave is sorry! That night was so amazing, so when Ave felt the same heat, it just seemed like… that was the only way to make it go away…”

The despondent elf completely bypasses her own storybook knight in consideration, staring at Adris like her world is ending.

“More than ‘standing against evils’, more than ‘sharing the same slumbers’… Ave just wanted to be… more than friends, like you said we… might be…?”

(Ever since that night…)

“But… Ave waited, those nights, and couldn’t sleep, but…

Never once, never once did you… come again like you did in the mansion. Unh, Ave is…!”

(The whole time, because I’ve been unable to “comfort her” due to circumstances, she…)

One half of Adris feels pain for her. That bitter misunderstanding she inflicts on herself is like Serras’, beginning to blossom into pain.

But, the other half is giddy beyond belief.

(Oh, wow, she’s completely fallen for me without… any further effort on my part!)

He’d wondered how to bait her into an affair, now that he realizes it. After Hoime and Lycia and Fehr, something familiar and totally “his” appealed more than all other things…

(Just how handsome am I to her now!?)

“It’s always some stupid mistake, just diving head first into the obvious. Ave is the ugly one… that trips without legs. No real hope, it was always a mistake, because Ave was always a mistake…”

She stares at Rouvenor, lamenting her existence with tears and snot running down her cheeks. The knight lifts his chin, but otherwise betrays no thoughts.

No rescue is forthcoming from the rhyming swordsman that Adris finds most hideously offensive of all imitations yet.

“Ave embarrasses herself in front of even the weird Rouvenor? Hahaha, ‘the hero abandons a useless heroine’, so true! Neesiette was right, being so touchy and easy, letting Adris feel nothing while Ave feels so loose, so… sloven and EASY like the evil women Ave hates, embracing pleasure alone, greedy without giving back…!?”

Trying to wipe her face clean, Adris’ most fragile conquest is about to crumble into dust when the tears keep coming back.

Her despondency is a siren’s call to Adris’ logical thoughts, even in this strange dimension where emotions run hotter.

Absence makes the heart fond, and self-delusion is what inflames the wildest love.

(I was overlooking my best “con” this whole time.)

“Sorry, Ave ruined that night. It was Ave’s… best, only real experience… the one that meant…” To apologize, despite nearly being out of breath with the neediness of her body, Ave bows.

One night to Adris had been incredibly “special”, but one of many throughout his life.

To her, though?

“Ave’s body is ugly like this, with a tail, right? Thought that would turn out like… and she’s terrible at touching, so, it’s better for Adris to smell like Kol, because, because…”

(A “dream” where you ruin someone you depend on is a terrible one. Others harm, but I can heal!)

And the scent of Ave’s body is aggression, pure need, disguising supplication.

“Kol is way better, she can do what Ave never could think, or dare to do…! Ave wants to help, so much, but, but, there’s never a way to…!?”

(It’s time for a real man to save you from yourself!)

“… Guh! H-How…”

He struggles to speak without air to spare, only for her droning to hedge him out.

“… So, Ave will, Ave will go somewhere, and find re-re-release with…!”

(You’ll… shut up… you pathetically cute and bullyable girl, and…!)

“H-How…”

(Accept me as your solution!)

“How dare you degrade… with insults a peerless…” With the authority she loves laced in, Adris growls. “… treasure that belongs to ME.”

(Always!)

“… wiiiiTTTTTHHHH—!?

A-Adris, ‘belongs’…!?”

When Adris’ anger surges, Ave cowers and relaxes her coils enough to profit.

(SHOWTIME!)

Instantly, he squirms out enough to flow one long stroke over her shining tail.

“Hhooohooooooo! A-A-Adris…!”

A touch frees his body, to allow him to slide down her lifted coils and then pointedly march toward this cringing snake.

“Are you my enemy, to deprive me of wonders, Ave?”

“N-No…!?”

What little predatory spirit she summoned flutters away, horror and fascination mixing in Ave’s expression when she closes inward with her body.

(Less fear, more allure.)

“Would I want something worthless?”

“… No…?”

Tears stop brewing with her needy gasp.

(But not too much seduction.)

“Cavorting with another man?”

“… Man…?”

She blinks, then turns and cries out with a guilty tinge.

“Rouvenor!? No… a little…? Maybe at first, but not later!”

Like she’s caught in a trap, Ave leans forward with her hand extended for rescue!

(Easiest bait.)

“False things and pretty cages, Ave doesn’t want either! Ohhh, we were going to literally a fairy land, but, why did it become nothing but hot, and why did we end up staying here!?”

Adris breezes past her hand, coming within breath’s distance with an abruptness that makes Ave inhale sharply.

“But we are here, and so, a forest child became heated and needed something so much that her fingers searched for it…?”

“Eeeehhh!? I’m… Ave was doing nothing…!”

She greedily savors his closeness, all while trying to burrow into the wall to escape it. Her hands that have savored her own self hide fruitlessly behind.

“Ave… Ave felt too much, so, so…!?”

“So, in front of your hero, you acted shamefully?”

“Haah, that’s, Ave didn’t, no…!?”

For safety, Ave looks to Rouvenor.

And the knight returns that look…

A dashing smile presents, as obvious with bemusement as possible. Refusing to act, Rouvenor still provides a useful tool as he shifts about ever so fluidly with deep thought evident.

(I hate you. Time to weep!)

“Ahhhh!?” The stooge on display aids in crumbling the “princess’” resolve, a hollowness afflicting her. “Ave… Ave is…”

(When you seek to become everything to someone that’s yours, hurt the one that tries to take what you’ll tie down tightly!)

Adris leans up, whispering into her shaking ear.

“You’re my shameful elf who finds paradise in watching and being witnessed in turn.”

“… N-No, Ave doesn’t…

AHHH!?!?”

Pale skin fires red when he strokes it. Her cheek earns this gift of being touched, though Adris has no smile to return her dopey grin.

“Lying girls get punished, firstly for forgetting their friends.”

“… P-Punished…!? But, they told me no—!?”

“Punished for not listening to your heart first, Ave.”

“But…!”

His passionless face full of recrimination causes her to gulp.

(One heart skip! A moment of doubt!)

“But, Ave, for coming to the only man who can cradle your breeze and make you soar…”

“… Soaaar…?”

Ave’s eyes rolls back when he strokes under her chin, barely a whisper spoken. Her hands twitch while rubbing on her stomach and “thigh”, and she struggles to not leap on Adris.

(… Offer pleasure eternal, then, with the absolute confidence of…!)

“…And for wearing my black so proudly, I’ll punish you… a little more gently.”

Adris slides back, sweeping his left hand to indicate her bed.

“Lie on the floor… Avenalliah.”

Breathless at first, Ave stares at the boy who makes this order.

His voice is controlled to betray no hint of indecision. And his body language rigid, yet his hand fluid…

One, then two, fingers contracting for show.

“… Ah… ah…?”

Faced with such a humiliating order, at least for any other female Adris knows to accept, his calculating words accomplish the final objective.

Beyond comprehending, Ave’s boiling brain simply shuts down.

The sweet smell she exudes wafts its answer instead.

As quick as when she grabbed him up, Ave coils her body in a circle around Adris, and lays on her back with arms tightly across her breasts and stomach.

“Haaah… haaaaah…!”

With something approaching worship in her eyes, if one can ignore the blazing light of lust that her constricting slit pupils shine with, Avenalliah Aurmaris makes herself more vulnerable than ever before.

(In front of your hero…)

Adris unconsciously licks his lower lip, himself breathless with study of this scene.

The beautiful beast is now at his feet.

But, where an heiress apparent required dark, cutting humor to sate her desire for harm…

A false god is more than content to step over her body, one leg on either side, and calml seat himself on her stomach.

“… Adris…!”

(A throne for me! AND…)

Luckily, the body of the only elf Adris can claim to stand settles at just the perfect angle. When his fingers come down to slowly and forever tug the top of her dress down to reveal her perfect pert mounds…

“Ahh!? Oh…!?”

Adris watches from the corner of his eye to gauge how Ave’s cry affects the entourage that’s forced to watch this “princess” that was accompanied throughout the day react to a real man’s dominance.

(THIS IS SO VERY…!)

Outwardly unmoved, no matter how ancient and powerful this fake might claim to be “in character”, every minute movement of muscle and soft organ makes Rouvenor as naked to Adris as Ave will shortly be.

When the knight leans forward in fascination, harboring an unknowable consternation beneath the placid surface, Adris wants to scream.

Almost to invite him with a speech to witness the glory he’s “allowed” to witness.

(ENTERTAINING!)

“Don’t lay a single finger on me, Avenalliah.”

“… Why…!?”

This command forestalls one sly hand already.

“I won’t let you take. You can only ask…”

Adris shifts forward, letting his bulging crotch jut out toward her tight mouth.

“… and especially show. Looking for me, like a good girl should…”

“… Nnneaaah, hah…!?”

Trapped by unconscious submissiveness, Ave’s eyes pierce through his Kestner-provided pantaloons.

“… what was it from me you needed to sate yourself?”

Ave’s tongue flicks out, tasting the air just at his bulge.

“Haah! Haah, remember… like that night!”

(And it’s a night I’d love to redo!)

At least, so long as his neck is very far from her mouth.

“Adris, I’m burning up…”

(I know! I’m understanding why.)

The more he plays to his own needs, the stronger the dimension’s blurring colors leech away rationality.

(How did this elf last so long!? She’s been stuck here for at least two hours.)

“Then, what do you need, Ave?”

“… Ahhh… ooh, I need…!” A tongue flicks out again, before she stutters this salvation in view.

“I need… need your…

p-penis…”

Before Adris can bother to tap on his crotch, the flap wrapped over his thigh unleashes the weight it was constricting.

(Shit!)

“HYAH!?”

Ave yelps when his length burst into view, but Adris has no tells for his own shock.

“… I suppose I’ll let you play with it, since it missed you.”

(These pants always only do what they want to.)

Ave’s body reddens with his cock head in sight, leaking pre-cum in anticipation of rubbing all over her.

“Adris…! I missed how big it is. It wants to attack me…!”

(Only because you keep complimenting it!)

“Hyah! Tender!?”

But to prove her right, Adris’ hands come to grab up her handful breasts.

All so that he can slip sandwich loosely between them with his cock and stroke her sweaty skin.

“This is what you wanted?”

“Y-Yes…”

Faster he thrusts, staying atop her when Ave bucks for a deeper, rougher breath. Between his thumb and forefinger, he tweaks her rock-hard nipples.

“My heart is thumping…! Smell… dizzy…”

“Seeing this… you have to show everyone what it makes you want to do, Ave.”

(I knew it the first moment she tripped into view, but this girl…)

“Uhhhnnn… nooooo…”

Adris watches her arm begin to draw down toward her crotch.

“Ave… shouldn’t…”

Her tongue flicks out to hang.

“S-S-Shouldn’t be… so lewd…”

(… really only gets off when what she’s doing is put into view!)

Then her face melts, with Adris guessing that her finger plays lightly over her nub.

“Ave… Ave can’t do it… too… too much, or…!”

Her pupils roll about and her mouth opens to invite a kiss.

AAAH!?

Ah-ADRIS…!”

Although desperate not to succumb, and then only to give in a little, her finger is a schlicking fury in Adris’ ears. Already previously abused without the chance of orgasming due to the wicked curse of the Castillo in effect, Adris relishes in riding her jolting body while testing a theory.

It’s a thought as brilliant as his surrounding that leads him to question this curse’s limits.

(At what point does it become “valid” that two people have… joined with each other?)

“Adris! Adris! AAADRIS!”

Ave’s hunger compels her to fixate on his dick plowing between her unfortunately lacking breasts, unable to achieve the marshmallow friction he could elsewhere.

“… AH?

Ave… wants to be able to… uuuhhh, do that for Adris…!”

Despite “failing” once more, Ave brings her other hand down to her crotch to redouble her efforts. If she can’t succeed up top, she’ll mash her delicate hole inside and out until she finally cums.

(Deserving or not, any shame you feel feeds your satisfaction!?)

The tears in her eyes, a mixture of sadness and ecstasy, remind Adris of another misunderstanding he must rectify before her soul crushes.

“Avenalliah!”

“Adris…!?”

Past her cleft, Adris allows his head to twitch before her face leaned up. He eagerly betrays how he breathes hard like she does, except without sacrificing his imperious look.

“I said you couldn’t use your hands…”

“… H-Huh!? Ah, Adris, I… Ave feels…”

Mumbling in confusion, his crumbling throne then opens her eyes wide in shock.

Looking to Adris’ face, then to his dick, and back, she narrows her eyes in longing…

“Hsha!”

That streaking pink muscle that tastes the air suddenly stretches out to wrap around the head of his dick, squeezing it so harshly and hooking behind his crown to repeatedly yank on it.

(UGH!? Yes… that’s the reaction of someone… who wants to please…!)

Whether she has the developed skill is irrelevant, in Adris’ mind.

Though Ave might break down and bawl if he showed dissatisfaction, looking from her work to his face and back with cheeks red from hormones and embarrassment, all that Adris truly needs is raw talent and desire to bond.

(You don’t have to be a “Hoime” who fails my expectations, or even a stupid kobold with a ridiculously hot pussy…)

“You’re not bad, Ave…!”

“Anngh!? ‘Nyot bahd’!?”

Moving from her breasts, Adris instead rubs the base of his cock in aid of her laborious slurps.

“Far from lazy… you gave everything on your first…!”

“Ahdrish…!”

The length of Ave’s tail is restless, shifting about and twitching.

Each rolling of her pupils accompanying a new tightness toward her release makes her tongue sloppier.

(I can… finish myself off! Now is the time to, oh, make this tryst snare her!)

Two of Adris’ fingers slip into her mouth, which are immediately sucked on by her closing lips.

“MMmmmm!?”

“… It’s not that you’re lazy, or disgusting, or easy…”

Pulling them out, Adris lifts them aloft so that both can watch her drool drip.

“… You came so suddenly, so hard… that night because…”

“Be… kaushe…?”

She’s in a trance already, pushed their by a height she’s dying to plunge over the edge of. Her impossibly long tongue rhythmically pulses along his shaft, now even wrapping over his stroking hand to hold it.

(I can feel it, your aura core!)

Adris’ soggy fingers move to Ave’s left upper breast, sliding over her bare skin.

When he concentrates on their link, it appears with a glow upon her skin just like the red-black knight-squire’s hand brazenly displays.

(“Wind”…)

“Ahn!?”

Ave startles at the glowing yellow glyph of “air” momentarily visible upon her breast before fading.

“With just two fingers… you’ll experience a pleasure you’ve never had before.”

The grin he brandishes must appear quite vile, because Ave’s face blanches.

Even as her fingers only noisily work faster.

“Nyooo…”

“You can’t escape it.”

Reaching behind, Adris’ hand hovers closer to a sweet honeypot.

“Nyooo…! Haftu, help… Adrish…!”

(Do you see this, you overdressed shrub!?)

Ave keeps pleading for Adris’ pleasure to come before hers, but the boy that’s still stroking at her face gauges instead the fascination of a copycat knight

Adris’ own features, narrower and agiler, stare deeply back into him.

With Ave at the cusp of climax, this “Rouvenor” still refuses to display jealousy, revulsion, or even lewd interest.

Rubbing his ear, he only seems astounded, introspective…

(As if you’re composing a symphony!? Fuck you, the girl you thought… to steal from ME…?)

“Ave! Prepare…”

“Ahh! HAAH, HAAAAH! NYOooooo…!”

The lewd, shameful snake elf cringes a bit, but her look isn’t one of dismay.

“… You’re going to cum… not because you’re bad… but because…”

“Schuck…!”

Ave closes her eyes, shivering in anticipation as she tries to rip the head of his cock off with her burning tongue.

“Free…”

“Ahh, ahhhh, AAAAAHHHH!”

When his fingers stroke over the back of her hand, Adris can feel something releasing in the wind, the very surroundings groaning gently.

(There has to be… some mutual joining, or… emotional bonding for it…)

Adris strokes himself faster, enjoying the divergent sensations of slippery heat over all and composed palm on his shaft.

“Ave… your body is… a storybook heroine’s ‘freedom’!”

“ADRISH, ADRISH, ADRIIIISH!”

“Kind, inviting, positive…! So, you feel pleasure without muddying it! Let pleasure… wipe out the bad…!”

(I’m the one that heals! I make everything… for those I…!)

For those that make his own heart leap, a childish spirit inside Adris finds the idea of his “poetic” nonsense bringing happiness.

(You’ll get better at this…)

“… Cum, Ave! Cum as I mark your black with my white, so…”

“HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

(… because I’ll force your body to become my toy, until pleasure is all you can feel or give.)

Only minutely, Adris synchronizes with Ave’s submerged aura core.

And then tweaks her clitoris between his two fingers where he concentrates all of his intent at.

“GUH…!?”

Ave’s monstrous body whips about like a pride of hunting cats fighting for the same prey!

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH———————!”

“Darkness” strikes, extracting a screech of mind-bending satisfaction.

(This is a fragment of…!?)

Only keeping the spigot between their senses closed saves Adris.

He lets go of her clit, blindsided by the intensity of her height bleeding through in the form of overpowering red-and-pink, stinging flashes.

(So… so beautiful…!)

It must be the realm they suffer in that makes him think that he’s standing over a gorgeous painting, the tongue clinging to his cock head now lazing on her shaking body.

(This… this is what she… felt!)

From within, bits and remnants all liberate from sleep. His Inner Expanse disgorges them to torment his heart. He accelerates toward his stroking climax while enjoying their degenerate ideas.

(Too much! But… it feels good, to take a girl like this, so… innocent and…!)

“Wear… my seed! Show… betray to everyone… how lewd you are inside, Ave!”

Angled down, Adris’ head erupts finally.

“AH! AH!”

Though so much was wasted inside of Hoime, Adris’ Zennian-changed body has plenty to spare for Ave’s delicate nose as the first rope impacts.

“Ave…!”

The next strand plops on her cheek, then starts is slide down.

“Ave! Y-You are…!”

“… HAH!?”

Staring at nothing whatsover, the passed out Ave briefly shocks back to life when his last shot strikes her lips.

She draws in her tongue, scrunching her face up in displeasure.

“… Taste it, savor it, even if you hate it…

… Ave… you’re… mine…!”

Adris wipes the sweat from his brow, grinning ear to ear while taking in the “alterations” to the masterpiece dead on the ground.

(This is it. That simple…)

“… Ah… hah, hah… whew…!”

The boy kneels back on her stomach, pinning her despite residual twitching.

He timidly wipes her cheek.

That white that was escaping is smeared over a bigger area.

Though she should be unconscious, in compliance with his last order her tongue slowly slides over to flick over his tongue and her own cheek.

(… If you get handed a… yearning beauty with such impossible potential…!?)

Gathering a bit of the goopy seed that makes her huff in dislike!

(How can you NOT be the one to break her in!? To make her… as lewd as you both want her to be…!?)

What the dream Fehr lacked, Adris has easily discovered in practice.

A “sweet” form of proverbially kneeling on another’s neck.

It just takes careful observation and boundless audacity to pull it off, which Adris possesses in spades.

“… Only I am permitted to make you uglier. To blossom you into your true beauty, my ‘princess’.”

“… haaah… haaaaah…”

(Nothing wakes me up like some new sexual discovery, it seems. Hmm?)

Adris’ wiping hand on his face produces a strange discovery.

A naked sneer is what he’s showing off.

(Ooops, let’s not too openly share these thoughts! But, now is the time for…)

Lifting his hand artfully, Adris takes in the sight of the blinding world before closing his eyes. To truly enjoy the differences between “then” and “now”, one must have a baseline.

(He looked “fascinated”?)

“And that, you toy of gray mud…”

(How delicious will your expression be?)

“… is the effect a real man can have on a woman~!

One prepared to surrender everything willingly, instead needing it stolen away.”

(Ahhh, I’m so good at this!)

Fat men, rich men, strong men, lascivious men.

They all have different motivations and appetites.

But, what truly unites them when they are all “evil” and Adris is “righteous” is, of course…

(Reveal your despair to me! I’m so thirsty…!)

The cacophony of chittering, buzzing, and braying creatures is deafening, though, distracting Adris before he can witness what he craves.

Rustling of leaves and clatter of branches, too.

(Hmm?)

Adris opens his eyes to stare at his lifted arm, wondering at what is suddenly preventing its movement.

Vines, thick and woven, solidify their entrapment.

(Vines?)

All about, Adris’ view is of a forest, primeval and stratified. The sudden summer heat rushing by subtly roars with ancient anger.

As if ruins grow from the endless dark depths of these great trees’ roots, the sun-dark wilderness lit mildly by ghostly fairy wisps turns inward once viewed to gather for a feast.

Wooden groans and moans are hungry for more than sunlight.

Lacking sentient botherings, their rage is more an undercurrent of what defines their reason for persisting in an age of humans.

(“Life here… hates me.”)

And it cradles him so snugly. Avoiding touching the sleeping princess’ coils, these roots home in on his weakest joints and musculature.

Expertly pulling, ever so gently and wrongly, with enough force to cause him to gasp.

“What… why is there a forest?”

Is what Adris wishes t ask; but, the cross’ protections against domination spectacularly vanish here.

(Oh… Oh, he’s as dangerous as that thing?)

“To experience it after ten thousand seasons, can even a liberated voice describe it?”

At his ear, the voice of spring’s joy and summer’s hate emerges from the false replication of Adris’ own. Confidence of manhood becomes whimsy of eternal youthful vigor.

“What is familiar, but also new, becomes exotic, even erotic! But, also…?”

(WHO!? ROUVENOR!?)

“Also…!?”

Currently at the highest efficiency and intensity he’s had them since Xin, Adris’ aura senses should’ve felt this grand world being grown around even if appearing instantly from an activation of a Talent or magic.

(Why can’t I speak?)

Most troubling, and frightening he must admit, of all…

Is that Adris’ soul has ceased to move. No “darkness” circulates.

His body is frozen, awaiting the next words of this honey-tongued interloper.

“To see what transpired, though the would-be artist lacks so much comprehension… is just, still…”

Slender hands, stained of the same green which afflicts Avenalliah’s hair, wrap around Adris’ body to hold him. Of the same thickness as his own arms, maybe even finer, the butterflies that cling to them quickly flap to hover.

“… sublime.

Almost as sublime as the vision, daydream or nightmare name you if you dare, of one so pure to my breath’s joy…?”

Adris’ tongue tip tastes the immeasurable variety of sweets of this impossible grove when the speaker touches it.

(… It’s every poison I’ve ever tasted, handled, or heard of, too…)

What grasps Adris like an adult would a toddler speaks softly, but carries psychopathy in the gentle, yet cruel, manners it abides by and the spirit which animates it.

“To witness, within the ever-present immensity of my being separating green from gray only by a single wink, a blessed elven child, soiled by an exile from another world’s winds…?” The musical cadence sounds positively feminine in this moment, as if boy and girl are easy for this unseen being to change between.

(… Shit. Shit. Shit, shit, shit…! I FORGOT!)

“This servant was unsure how to proceed when the unit quipped in response to being ordered to terminate…”

“‘Ignorance of my game continue to feign, lest imminent doom by fell winds reign.’

Falke had spoken of one “experiment” defying orders most severely.

(… FUCK! THIS ONE WAS COMPLETELY BERSERK ALREADY!?)

As if drinking in Adris’ change of emotions, the slender hands assert unfortunate strength by gripping his neck and sliding down to…

(NOT MY DICK!)

Both promptly tighten.

“… One damned to die, a miserable failure who cannot contain a true breath… it enjoys the realm of the shaded shadows, but also finds enlightenment here?

A terrible, bittersweet, moving self opposition!”

The hands grow super-hot! And vines twist and lance his skin.

“What inescapable road, one that goes to fiery places full of fear, did this cowardly, beloved one fall onto, tempted by pure evil? What future now will thrust, into and onto her!?”

Terrible and hazardous, a hissing sound, as if steam escaping a pot, roasts Adris’ back. The heat rises at a rate which will soon crackle human skin.

(SHE’S AT FAULT, NOT ME! You weren’t supposed to be able to harm me…!)

But blood drips down Adris’ cheek where the sharp nail of this “boy” rakes.

Raw majesty courses from this “Rouvenor” through his forest, inflaming the trees themselves into glowing fairy radiance.

“Share, exclaim, betray your truth to me!”

Whatever demand this voice makes, Adris will obey.

This is written into its very air, the core of its authority.

“Let me name, so as to unmake, yo—!”

A glorious tinkle is followed by a grand cracking note that ripples through this primeval place, stifling the groaning trees.

“Oh.”

From behind, the hissing becomes a burst of moving air!

The heat assaulting Adris escapes into the surroundings, withering leaves in the panoramic forest hell that begins to melt into bright, rainbow colors.

(… The… the vitality of this killer is…!?)

With the steam escaping, its “life” rapidly expires.

The hand on his head speckles to a pure gray and collapses into dry ashes.

“Breath be illusory, and thus the fever dream ends.”

Growing sing-song once more, the amused fey creature pats Adris’ mysteriously erect cock one last time.

(… Why is it excited?)

Just like the original knight of Ave’s creation, Adris’ tormentor shares spring’s last poetry.

“Whichever find we, under sun and moon share an encounter now foretold, recall:

‘Grow candy-kind then, you, expect I shall find…’”

The body’s melting remains shatter, but somehow a ghostly hand rubbing on Adris’ butt cheeks leaves him coldly sweating.

“‘… To this wayward daughter, lest [this] become [mine]~.”

Its whimsical, malign glory takes flight on the same gale that carries Ave’s strokes of “luck”. It soars through the hallways of the mirror manse returned to being, creating phantasms of light as it sweeps through.

(Like it’s “real”…)

Adris rests uneasily upon his “throne”, drenched in sweat and clenching his butt.

Lingering only on this threat instead of his conquest of just moments ago. Freed from the evil spirit’s influence, he can’t bring himself to flee from what it named as “important”.

“Mmm…!?”

When the “wayward daughter” flinches in discomfort, Adris’ hands shoot out to gently take up one of hers.

“… ahh… p-prince…”

Ave smiles anew, the dopey sort of innocent grin she favors clinging to her despite the semen drying on her face.

“…

… Daughter?”

(Who the fuck are you, Ave!?)

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Chapter 124         Table of Contents          Chapter 126